Printer Friendly Format

Page 3 of 3
| Previous |

Bringing the citizens closer to local government: The innovative GIS of the La Coruña Local Council

A scalable, configurable map server
However, one of the goals of the City Council was to be as much independent as possible from GIS suppliers and to concentrate maintenance tasks into a single tool. To achieve this two-fold objective, a powerful configuration module was developed in Microsoft .NET technology, combining manager and authoring capabilities at once. Thus trhough asset of wizards, the GIS administrator of La Coruña City Council is at present able to edit the web-based cartographic project and easily adapt its contents and functionalities to the end user's requirements by:

• Simplifying the XML creation process and shortening by more than a half the implementation cycle, independently of the GIS underlying technology..
• Connecting simultaneously to several map servers (ESRI, Intergraph,…) and cartographic formats within one GIS project.
• Seamless accessing to external data warehouses through OLEDB, giving the user the option to query or modify all the data or part of them through filters.
• Managing a pre-publishing environment, the changes in the configuration being available to the ens-users whenever the he decides.
• Defining the GIS web project through advanced configuration tools (query builder, thematic mapping definition, multilingual, batch report printing, intelligent raster catalog generation,…)
• Enabling user access rights to the application contents and its functionalities, both at an individual or group level.

Figure 2: Access to attribute data from selected features
THE CHALLENGE OF GETTING CLOSER TO THE CITIZENS
The greatest challenge facing local government is to convert its internet portal into a forum for facilitating communication between government and the public. The GIS of the La Coruña Council will make a second leap forward in 2005 with the publication online of part of the information managed by the council. The council already has a cartographic portal which provides access to information on public transport, equipment and tourist information (hotels, restaurants). Yet, the project aims to go further by providing dynamic links between the portal and the maps managed by the council. This will significantly increase the usefulness of the portal for the public, who will be able to request planning certificates through the internet; report incidents detected on the street; track applications; identify and download the maps most suited to a particular engineering project using a metadata search engine; find the best route to go to the conference hall from the hotel, etc. Cartography will also encourage greater participation of the public in defining municipal policies and the decision making process.

Page 3 of 3
| Previous |